The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James

1305 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: beast in the jungle essay

Point of View as a Narrative Device in “The Beast in the Jungle”
In Henry James’ short story, “The Beast in the Jungle”, the third person narrative is used as a literary device and therefore, the narrator does not play a role in the events of the story. Considering the fact that this is a story about a man’s self-absorption, it is interesting that this form of narration was used; typically, in order to completely capture a narrator’s self-interest first-person would be the narrative choice. Instead, James’ choice of the third person narrative is an advantage with respect to the theme of the story: a life that is not fully realized. The process by which the reader comes to understand the character of Marcher in an objective manner parallels the need of the main character to seek self-discovery by looking outside of himself. This paper will analyze James’ use of point of view in the story by applying it to the description of the first meeting between Marcher and May, and examining how this literary device is used to help the reader understand the characters and their strengths and shortcomings from the beginning of the story.
The story begins with a suggestion of a seasonal setting; the party at which Marcher and May meet takes place at a manor called Weatherend, and the two characters are named for months, one of which is cold and dreary and the other is bright and lively. Even though James chose to write in the third person narrative, the person telling the story stays relatively detached from the characters usually, the third person point of view becomes an all-knowing one, but in “The Beast in the Jungle”, there is a distance from the characters that contradicts the typical effect of this narrative device. For example, d...

... middle of paper ...

...characters as well as narrative perspectives that dispense with the comforting security of a single unified voice that delivers one accurate interpretation (Ghani and Akram) This leaves the reader with the ability to fill in the details of the story because of the open-ended nature through which it has been written, using the third person point of view.

Works Cited

Bobe, Diandra. "Re-Defining Meaning in Henry James' "The Beast in the Jungle"." 2003. Bryn
Mawr.edu. Web. 7 December 2013.

Ghani, Mamuna and Radia Akram. “Henry James and the Pursuit of Consciousness: a Psycho
Stylistic Study of the Beast in the Jungle." June 2011. Pakistani Journal of Social
Sciences. Web. 7 December 2013.

James, Henry. “The Beast in the Jungle.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed.
Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print

Show More
Related

  • Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown versus Oates' Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been

    1590 Words  | 4 Pages

    Having each story been written in a third-person narrative form, the reader knows the innermost feelings of the protagonists and watches the main characters change. The reader learns what Brown feels as he thinks to himself, “What a wretch I am to leave her on such an errand!” In “Where Are You Going,” the narrator supplies much of Connie’s feelings, such as in the first paragraph, “she knew she was pretty and that was everything.” However, in Young Goodman Brown, “point of view swings subtly between the narrator and the title character. As a result, readers are privy to Goodman Brown’s deepest, darkest thoughts, while also sharing an objective view of his behavior” (Themes and Construction: Young 2). Point of view of “Young Goodman Brown” contrasts with that of “Where Are You Going” because “This narrative voice stays closely aligned to Connie’s point of view” (Themes and Construction: Where 2). Despite the subtle contrast, both points of view allow the reader to see the changes in Brown and Connie; Brown loses his faith and Connie loses herself. Point of view also affects how the reader sees other chara...

    Read More

  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Jr.

    612 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).

    Read More

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding Through his writing in the book Lord of the Flies, William Golding's view on. nature is not as in the plant and tree kind of nature, but in the nature of man at a young age of life. Golding is trying to portray what instincts and desires are like at an early time in a man's life when there are no adults around to help shape those. feelings to fit in with the mainstream society that people live in everyday. The nature of man is any and all of the instincts and desires of a person or animal.

    Read More

  • Examining Perspective in Literature

    910 Words  | 2 Pages

    When writing literature, authors will adapt points of view to mold the perceptions of their readers. Three points of view that authors use to draw readers into their works of fiction are the limited perspective, the first-person perspective, and the objective perspective. Three stories will be examined and critiqued for their use of these narrative techniques. Of the three perspectives that will be examined, the first-person perspective is the most useful for sharing the authors’ vision.

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclairs "The Jungle"

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    Several years before and after the turn the turn of the twentieth century, America experienced a large influx of European immigration. These new citizens had come in search of the American dream of success, bolstered by promise of good fortune. Instead they found themselves beaten into failure by American industry. Upton Sinclair wanted to expose the cruelty and heartlessness endured by these ordinary workers. He chose to represent the industrial world through the meatpacking industry, where the rewards of progress were enjoyed only by the privileged, who exploited the powerless masses of workers. The Jungle is a novel and a work of investigative journalism; its primary purpose was to inform the general public about the dehumanization of American workers. However the novel was much more effective at exposing the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry.

    Read More

  • Beast In The Jungle Narcissism Essay

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    A narcissist is one who believes “he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special” people. They exploit others for their own advantage, lack empathy, and are “preoccupied with fantasies” or ideals that can be unrealistic. They believe they are the “primary importance in everybody’s life”. (“Narcissistic Personality”) Henry James’ theme in his short story, “The Beast in the Jungle”, is about a man, who is so egotistical and self-absorbed that he misses what life has to offer him, in particular, love, because of the narcissistic behavior he is doomed to live a life of loneliness and misery. John Marcher, the protagonist of “The Beast in the Jungle”, is about a narcissistic upper-class man who believes his life is to be defined by some unforetold event. He focuses only on himself and as a result, he neglects everything and everyone in his life. Marcher meets May Bartram, a woman who knows his secret, and instead of pursuing a romantic relationship with her, or even a genuine friendship, he uses her for his own benefit. Henry James utilizes a variety of literary devices to convey this theme in his story, such as the title, symbolism, dialogue, and the use of a limited third-person narrative. Henry James leaves us our first clue to the theme in the title, “The Beast in the Jungle”. When one thinks of a beast, they typically imagine something big and ferocious; Marcher’s ego was just that.

    Read More

  • The Jungle Book by Upton Sinclair

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Jungle by Upton Sinclair exemplifies a muckraking style in its often gory depictions of life in a meat packing factory, Sinclair writes of how the meat packing industry exploits its workers, many of whom are uneducated and poor in the same way a capitalist government exploits it's working class. Sinclair uses Symbolism in terms of physical objects, Objects that serve a metaphorical purpose, and oppressive tone, to persuade the reader that Capitalism leads to the declination and corruption of America and that the only way to remedy this is socialistic government.

    Read More

  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

    756 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Jungle” is a sociological novel, the work of public and literature heritage. The story is about the hard destiny of Lithuanian immigrants who seek for freedom and justice in America that become the hostages of merciless socialistic labor system in the United States. The cruel story takes place in the naturalistic scenes of gloomy slaughterhouses of Chicago, where, in monstrous miasmatic of demoralization, the hero flay the dead tubercular carcasses. With the help of grandiose rhetorical techniques like metaphor, parallelism, simile, key words, amplification and outstanding verbal approaches, Upton Sinclair won the hearts of thousands people due to his heartfelt language of explicit naturalism and showed the oppressing atmosphere of socialism.

    Read More

  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

    1571 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.

    Read More

  • The Secret Lion Literary Analysis

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    view. The narrator is able to delve into Andy’s thoughts and feelings but is also able to

    Read More

  • The Call of the Wild by Jack London

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novella The Call of the Wild is a story of Buck overcoming challenges while being thrown into the real world and learning new traits like persistence and resilience. Protagonist Buck is a colossal St Bernards cross Scotch shepherd dog, transforms from a humble house dog and then eventually returns to a primordial state as a best of the wild. Along the way he is faced with an endless array of challenges. London achieves this by portraying Buck’s change in character in a manner that explores and incorporates diverse motifs.

    Read More

  • Innocence in Daisy Miller

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    James' manipulation of appearances in Daisy Miller as well as other character's notions of these appearances provides us with a novella of enigmatic and fascinating characters. Daisy, the most complicated of these ambiguities, is as mysterious as she is flirtatious. James gives her a carefully constructed enigmatic quality that leaves the reader wondering what her motivations were and who she truly was. He structures the novella in such a way as to stress the insights that the supporting characters provide into Daisy's character, weather accurate or erroneous. Despite their questionable reliability, they allow James to make commentary on both European and American cultures and social class.

    Read More

  • The test

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story is told from the third-person limited point of view, which means that the reader sees the story through the eyes and perspective of a “viewpoint character”. In such cases, this character acts as a filter, and while we can see the internal thoughts and motivations of the viewpoint character, we can only see the behaviors of the other characters through his or her eyes.

    Read More

  • Comparing Defoe's Moll Flanders and Aphra Behn's Oroonoko

    3562 Words  | 8 Pages

    Although both authors claim their stories are true, and thereby that their characters are realistic, there seems to be a gap between the authors' claims and the "reality" of the characterization. This question is closely connected to the fact that both novels belong to the earliest English novels. There was no fixed tradition that the authors worked in; instead the novel was in the process of being established. The question arises whether the two works lack a certain roundness in their narrators.

    Read More

  • Effective Use of the First Person in First Confession

    957 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...s. The reader is also shown that Jackie's mother dislikes her mother-in-law's mannerisms. This use of conveying the story through the characters is another method that is primarily used in first-person point of view, conventionally for its simplicity and advantage of giving several details in a short amount of time.

    Read More

More about The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James

Open Document